Feb. 27, 2010

Recap | Final Stats

South Carolina Head Coach Darrin Horn
Opening Statement…
We knew coming in to the game that Mississippi State’s ability, but also commitment to shooting the 3 was going to be really important to their team, regardless of who they played. They found a way to shoot 20-plus 3-point attempts a game. We wanted to do our best to take them away. I think you have to credit them for the most part. But I think we did a good job with challenging them, but there were a couple from (Barry) Stewart that were unbelievable in the first half, and in the second half we made a little run and started to get momentum and got some baskets. We made adjustments at halftime but it seemed like every time they needed a shot to go down, they did that. But we got terrific play from our young kids. Lakeem Jackson, once again got 10 points, leads us in rebounding, no negatives, no turnovers, a couple of assists and couple of steals. You have to keep in mind that a couple of times he’s doing it from a power forward position. He’s giving up four or five inches and 20 or 30 pounds, so to see him get to that and to see (Ramon) Galloway play the way he did, I think they were real positives. Galloway played really aggressive and did some really great things, and again didn’t bring us any negatives. He got 14 points, didn’t make a ton of his 3s but knocked down a couple but he also didn’t turn the ball over. That’s the kind of fight we’re looking for as we move down the stretch here.

On what he tells the team at this point in the season…
I think you tell the seniors about a decision about how they want to finish at home on Wednesday night. And how they want to go out and get a win at home at their last game. And for our guys that are coming back, you tell them to continue to fight and build and understand that everything we do is to continue to move forward for the future as well. They’re not a lot of secrets but at the same time, they’re no excuses. I don’t think we can make any on Wednesday. We’re at home and I think we have more wins in league play and with the same amount of experience and that type of thing. Wednesday is a night you challenge your seniors to go out on top and the young guys to just keep doing what they’re doing. Again, I can’t say enough good things about how our freshmen are playing.

Mississippi State Head Coach Rick Stansbury
Opening Statement…
I hope we never have to play against Devan Downey again. He’s not just one of the best players in the state, he’s one of the best players in the country. For us to come in here and do a defensive job on him, is pretty impressive for some of our guys. We knew coming in here and for us to have a chance you have to do a good job on him. I thought Dee Bost and those other people giving help on him all night was huge. He never got going, I never thought he got into a good flow. We made shots early in the game and when we make shots we do pretty good. We lost four out of five on the road and they were all one possession games under 10 seconds to go and we didn’t shoot well in any of those games. When we shoot the ball like that, it gives your defense so much more. I thought Jarvis (Varnado) was consistent all night long. In the second half, I thought we had good rhythm.

On clock management the last five minutes…
We were just trying to survive at the end. Our best friend was the clock. We got into a one-and-one at about the 10-minute mark and instead of scoring early we took things in transition early and if it wasn’t early that clock was to support us. Whether we scored or not, we were just trying to shorten this game the best we could. Probably five out of the eight times we scored, which is what you have to do on the road. We had some silly turnovers but we never let Carolina go in one of their spurts that they are capable of doing. I’ve seen Downey just take over games but I never thought Downey got that going tonight.